Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a Likud faction meeting Monday that the Tal
Law, which allows ultra-Orthodox citizens to defer military service, will not
be extended by the government but rather go to a vote in the Knesset.

Results showed that 49% of the public believe
religious soldiers should be excused from military ceremonies which include
women performers, 40% said they must be forced to attend and only 4% would like
the IDF to only allow men perform in ceremonies.

Ultra-Orthodox (71%), religious (75%) and traditional Jews (55%)
said the soldiers should be excused, as did 40% of seculars. However, more
seculars (51%) believe religious soldiers should be forced to attend events
which include women performers.

In the past, not
listening to women sing may have been the practice of certain elements, but
until recently it was not the practice of mainstream religious men. Even today
one has only to attend the Israel Opera and other musical events to see the
large number of kippa-wearing men in the audience.

To: IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny
GantzDear Sir:Gradually, but as a practical matter at a
dizzying speed, they're stealing the army - the air force, at least - from
under you. That's what I conclude from the experience of my son, who serves as
a technician at an air force base in the center of the country, and also a bit from
what I have seen myself.Soon your army will only function with the
approval of rabbis and, most unfortunately, this is also your fault.

“We have 13 lawsuits
against drivers for not enforcing the law, and it’s very effective,” Hoffman
said. “Those suits for damages are helping to unlearn what 10 years of
segregated buses have taught.”

“Women are in the world,
and the kids see that the women know more. So how else can the Orthodox world
keep them in their place other than to say, ‘You might know more in the modern
world, but in the religious world, you should know your place.’ ”

While the
charedi generally oppose Kolech, “Charedi women come to us and ask for help,”
she said, noting that a growing problem is coming from what Kehat called the
“charedi nationale,” who are increasingly participating in public institutions,
but “don’t want to be modern.” Therefore, they seek to exclude women from the
spheres they enter.

“As more
charedi people become involved in social life — starting to go into the army,
or the workplace, or political life — they say, ‘We’re ready to be more
involved, but let us bring our manners and values.’ They demand that women go
to the side. It’s a very serious fight. They’re welcome, but they must respect
the status of women.”

Machon Meir, which is involved in helping Jews
become more religious in the spirit of the teachings of Rabbi Abraham Isaac
Kook, bans images of women from appearing in its pamphlets.

...Machon
Meir, with its missionary Haredi Zionist policy, is funded for the most part by
the state. The money comes not only from the Religious Affair Ministry, but
from the Education Ministry as well. The face that is really blurred is not
that of Ruth Fogel, but that of the State of Israel.

The
extreme manifestation of this of course is the zealous suppression of women in
the public sphere that has become mainstream Haredi religious behavior.

...What
sort of mindset simply dismisses this kind of straightforward halachik thinking
in favor of making women disappear?

One that
stems directly from the rejection of the basic moral claim that women possess
the same humanity, dignity and stature as men, and that they are not simply
objects that populate a male world. And what a price has been paid for this
rejection.

A
disfigurement of Torah observance, and an international desecration of God’s
name.

When a
traditional religious group tries to make peace with the surrounding society,
it is more threatening to fundamentalists than, say, a Reform Jew eating a BLT,
because it is someone just like them starting to “stray.” The fundamentalists
must draw a line in the sand.

So they
spit and swear.

“It’s
designed in some ways to get other people’s backs up,” Kaufmann said. “It’s
what’s called ‘creating tension’ with the surrounding society.”

The “us vs.
them” mentality reinvigorates the fundamentalists. And, confoundingly enough,
the more we react, the more resolved they become: They must be doing something
right if the fallen world sees them as wrong.

A female
reporter's face was intentionally blurred on a municipal advertisement intended
for Rehovot's religious public.

Amitai
Cohen, chairman of the Religious-National Forum and Rehovot's religious council
treasurer, said his department sent the ad to the newspaper with Rahav-Meir's
face displayed clearly. Cohen said the newspaper, which is intended for the
ultra-Orthodox community, blurred the face without the organizers' knowledge.

Rabbi Shlomo Aviner,
one of the most prominent Religious Zionism leaders, has justified the decision
to blur a picture of Ruti Fogel, who was brutally murdered in the settlement of
Itamar along with her husband and three of their children, in a weekly
bulleting published by the Meir Institute.

The rabbi addressed the incident in a video
response to a reader's question on the Maale website. "It's an act of
respect," he said. "Although she has died, it doesn't mean she
shouldn’t be respected."

Even in a diverse society, all of us, secular, liberal, and
post-modern “believers,” can and should voice their opinions, even if that
means that the majority, secular cultural might hurt or offend or even
interfere in the practices of a minority culture. We might need to consider
becoming fundamentally liberal—and maybe some of us already have.

Segregation exists in Jerusalem. Until IRAC won
its case, it existed with the assent of the government, the very government
that subsidizes the bus companies. Now it is sustained by social pressure.

Still, many Haredi women bless IRAC for opening the front of the bus to them
again. Only by sitting where we please will Jerusalemites and other Israelis
keep their buses integrated. Separate can never be equal.

A historic prayer
service was conducted in the Knesset on Wednesday by a leadership mission of
the North American Masorti-Conservative movement, the first mixed men’s and
women’s service ever held there.

The group also raised
the controversial issue of rights for non-Orthodox streams of Judaism,
referring to the lack of recognition the state grants to the Conservative
movement’s rabbis and ceremonies.

“... the State of
Israel degrades us time and again when it says that we are second-class Jews,”
he continued, mentioning Conservative marriages and conversions in particular.
“The discrimination against non-Orthodox movements in Israel does massive
damage to the image of Israel as a state for all Jews.”

Surprisingly, the ultra-Orthodox parties were
unfazed by the violation of the synagogue's status quo. MK Nissim Zeev (Shas)
said that as far as he was concerned, it was a public prayer room everyone was
entitled to use.

According to Zeev, if the group members had asked
to hold an egalitarian quorum at the regular prayer time, it would have been
considered a disturbance and provocation, but because they did it at a
different time he had no problem with this "glorification of women".

"Thank God, Israel doesn't have many
communities of this kind, which sow the rift among the people of Israel,"
he said. "But when they arrive, you can't prevent them from doing so in a
public place like the Knesset.

Overall, the survey found an increase in
attachment to Jewish religion and tradition from 1999 to 2009, following a
decrease from 1991 to 1999, which was the decade of mass immigration from the
former Soviet Union.

The
study's authors cited two reasons for the rise in religiosity. One is that
immigrants from the former Soviet Union, who contributed to the drop in
religiosity from 1991 to 1999, have now assimilated into Israeli society.

Various
studies have found that this process of assimilation has resulted in Soviet
immigrants becoming more traditional. The second reason is the demographic
change caused by the higher Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox birthrates.

Eighty-five percent of
haredim and 49% of religious Jews said they would obey Halacha rather than the
law or democratic values in case of a clash between the two. On the other hand,
84% of anti-religious seculars and 65% of seculars who are not anti-religious
said they would favor democracy. Forty-eight percent of traditional Jews said
they would "sometimes favor Halacha and sometimes favor democracy."

In total, 44% of all
respondents will obey law and democracy, 20% will favor Halacha and 36% have no
unequivocal opinion.

Seventy-three percent
believe that those who have undergone proper conversion are Jewish, even if
they don't observe mitzvot.

Forty-eight percent
said that even those who have undergone non-Orthodox conversion are considered
Jewish, 40% include a son of a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother, and 33%
say that anyone who feels Jewish is Jewish.

The study also
addressed the controversial issue of civil marriage, the subject of recent
debate, with 51% of respondents saying they absolutely agreed, agreed or
possibly agreed that the option of civilmarriage– not under the auspices of the Chief
Rabbinate – should be established in Israel.

Regarding the status of women, the study indicated significant differencesof
opinion on gender roles. Sixty-seven percent of haredim believe that thehusbandshould work and support thefamilywhile the wife stays home to take care
ofthe children,
while only 35% of the modern Orthodox feel that way.

Only 18%-20% of the secular community are of that opinion.

In addition, 73% of local Jews feel that Israeli and Diaspora Jews
share a common destiny, while 61% feel that the Conservative and Reform
movements should have equal status with the Orthodox.

Yes, there
has been an increase in Israelis' attachment to Judaism over the past decade,
but that means the situation has more or less returned to what it was two
decades before that.

This same
poll was first conducted in 1991, and its results were similar to those of the
latest survey.

A second
one was done in 1999, after the bulk of the immigrants from the former Soviet
Union had arrived in the country, but had yet to completely assimilate;
this explained the dip in Israeli Jews' attachment to religion at the time.

A decade
later, those immigrants have internalized the cultural codes of Israeli
society.

Throw in
an enlarged Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox population that has counterbalanced the
secularism the Russian-speaking immigrants brought with them, and the
proportion of Israelis who subscribe to traditional Jewish beliefs remains
virtually unchanged over the past 20 years.

Last week, God was
happy. A serious poll found that the number of believers in His existence is
growing. Israelis who define themselves as “haredim,” “religious” and
“traditional” currently comprise an overwhelming majority among the population.

‘Unorthodox’, a
feature documentary, tracks the lives of three teenagers from the modern
Orthodox community as they spend their post-high school year studying in Israel.

The film
follows the teenagers through their journey in Israel and America. The
documentary tells this intimate story with personal video diaries, giving us
those real life moments that are both raw and profound.

In this
exclusive behind the scenes, check out our Q&A with filmmaker Anna Wexler
herself and a special Vlog from Producer Shira on the Kickstarter Campaign!

“I think
that Unorthodox will bring up important discussions about the year in Israel
and the Modern Orthodox educational system.

On a
personal level, I’d really like the film to spark conversation about attitudes
towards people who seriously question, or outright reject, Orthodox Judaism.”

When mikvaot are public – they must be open to
everyone. But the Rabbinate is not interested in everyone. It is not
interested in creating a welcoming and inviting space that honors the women
seeking to immerse. It is interested in setting boundaries; in enforcing
its increasingly narrow view of “legitimate” ritual observance.

I am working with a few groups of women and men
interested in creating a new model for mikveh in Israel. One that is not under
the Rabbinate, one that can create its own policies – and one that seeks to be
as welcoming and inclusive as possible. Starting by not asking questions of the
immersees, except perhaps, “Is there anything I can do to make your experience
more meaningful?”

Simply put, we don’t understand each other,
American Jews and Israelis. We dance around the fact, we shy away from truly
examining it, but we are, as communities and as individuals, in many, many
respects, total strangers.

In an
effort to heighten both the knowledge and sensitivity of Israel's members of
Knesset about the American Jewish community, a new Israel-American Jewish
Knesset Caucus was inaugurated on Wednesday.

US
diplomat Dennis Ross has rejoined The Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI) two
months after stepping down from the position of US special envoy to the Middle
East, the Jewish think tank announced on Monday

One issue
that MetroWest has taken on perhaps more than any other federation is religious
pluralism in Israel.

The
Central federation has provided support for the Conservative synagogue in Arad.
Stone acknowledged that some members of the Central community, which includes
Elizabeth’s large Orthodox community, may not agree with the pluralism agenda.

However,
“we’re not going to [reach] unanimity on everything,” he said. “While we
haven’t been a leader like MetroWest in backing the religious streams, we
haven’t backed down on our commitment to Israel being accessible to all kinds
of religious expression.”

Stone and
Kleinman praised the behind-the-scenes efforts of the American Jewish Joint
Distribution Committee — which both federations support — in training and
finding employment for members of the fervently Orthodox community.

Taglit-Birthright
Israel launched its first special “Start-Up Nation” group this month after a
successful pilot program last year.

The
program is named for the popularbook “Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s
Economic Miracle” and included a talk by Saul Singer, one of the book’s
authors, visits to various Israeli hi-tech start-ups in Herzliya and Tel Aviv,
meetings with Israeli venture capitalists and a trip to IDC Herzliya to sit
with students and lecturers in the university’s specialized entrepreneurship
program.